Memories and Maladies
by korben600
Summary: Summer Rose is found in an Atlesian hospital after being comatose for years. But her family's Summer Rose isn't there. Not really.


**Content warning: If you're not comfortable with depictions of dementia...be warned, this may not be your kind of fic. (Also, I know this is a sensitive issue, and I was really concerned about my depiction of this topic, so if anyone has issue with my portrayal of it _please_ PM me about it and I'll try to make it better)**

* * *

Summer Rose wakes up in a hospital bed. The last thing she remembers is getting ready to go to Beacon tomorrow morning. A nurse walks in with a clipboard. She promptly drops the clipboard when Summer grabs her wrist. "Where. Am. I." the huntress whispers menacingly. The murder in her tone seemed to shock the woman into acting. "Atlas medical facility." "Shit." she whispers under her breath. She releases the woman's hand, and she looks ready to bolt. To the nurse's credit, and against all of her instincts creaming about how a huntress is deadly without her weapon, she stays, and tentatively picks her keyboard up for examination. "Excuse me, what is your name?" "Summer. Summer Rose." "How old are you?" "17" The pencil stops.

"What?" Summer says. "Nothing!" the woman says hastily as she frantically started writing again. "Um, what's your date and year of birth?" she continues as she keeps questioning. Eventually, she finishes, and then bolts out of the room. As soon as the nurse was out of sight, she looked down at her notes, which mostly consisted of one thing, written over and over "Amnesiac, appears to have lost memory of past few decades. Handle with **extreme caution**.

The next few days were boring for Summer. She went through basic checkups, and started on physical training in the Atlesian wilderness outside of the hospital. Her body felt wrong, like it was fatigued constantly, but she chalked that up to her being in a coma for a month. She had to keep in shape if she ever was going to reapply to Beacon after all...

One day, she was informed that some family of hers was coming to visit. One man came to visit her, dark haired, red eyed. He looked like they were on the verge of exploding with joy. "Pardon me, but who are you?" just like that, his expression dropped to dead. "I'm...your former teammate, Summer, it's me, Qrow." "What kind of idiot names their child after a bird?" Qrow snickered slightly at that, but his expression fell again. "You said that the first time we met too. I forgot you were so prickly shortstack..." "I'm not short, I'm height-impaired." "Said that last time too." Qrow said sadly. "Well is there anything else you wanted to tell me? I'm trying to train to get into Beacon." The dark haired man's face was confused again. "What? Think I can't get in?" For the first time since he visited, Qrow actually chuckled. "I am absolutely positive you can short stack, but uh...ask the nurse what year it is next time you get out." "What year it is?" She said confusedly as he walked out of the room. "What's so special about this year?!" she said loudly at him, "What year is it!" she yelled. A passing nurse, the one there when she woke u heard her, and gently led her back to her bed. "Trust me sweetie, you're going to want to sit down for this one."

She didn't recover from the revelation for a month. She was stuck in a fugue, trying desperately to understand what happened. Decades off of her life because of the coma, and years more off because of her memories. On some days she couldn't even remember her own name she was so far off in a daze.

The doctors prescribed a new type of drug to her, and her concentration came back. She decided that she wasted enough time asleep, she would train, and if she already became a huntsman once, she'd become one again. She explored the Atlesian wilderness around her remote hospital again, using trees and bushes as her training courses. But sometimes she fell back into a delerium again, but she pushed on, she had to become a huntress.

Then, one day, on a bad day, one of those days she just couldn't get up, she saw a man with blonde hair. "Hi." he said sheepishly. "Hello?" She said sleepily. She could vaguely recall the doctors giving her more medication earlier that day, for the headaches. "I'm...an old friend." "Sucks for you" she said honestly. She was tired, and she couldn't bring herself to care to temper her words. The blonde man chuckled. "I know. Listen, I know you don't know me, but I wanted to wish you the best." "Heh, thanks. Don't worry, I should be out in a bit." His face grimaced for a split second. "Yeah...yeah...you always get better right?" "Can't stop me…" she said as she faded into unconsciousness. "I know, I know..."

She had been in bed for a month, the headaches were more and more annoying. She hoped that when she went to Beacon, she'd be able to train them away. But for now, she was stuck in bed. Her door was open, so she could see the nurses rushing around too and fro. Finally, someone with a dark black hair walked past the door, and turned to see her. The woman's face seemed at war with itself before she settled on exasperated and she seemed to text someone before walking into Summer's room.

"Hi." Summer was tired, and she could barely move her head to look at the new person. "If you're looking for reception, it's the third door on the left" Summer muttered. "Ahh...I was just where I needed to be." the woman seemed tired. "I just got back from visiting my mother." "I hope she's getting better" Summer said tiredly. "...she's...doing better." Summer smiled. "Good to hear that." there was quiet before the woman spoke again. "She was a great woman." "Was?" "She...took an injury, when I was little." Summer could hear the pain in her voice "Must've been something bad to keep her in this joint." the woman snickered slightly before becoming sad again "Yeah...it was."

At this point, another, taller, blonde woman walked in. "Ru-" "Hey sis." the woman with black hair cut her off. "I was just telling...Summer? Was it?" "Yeah." "That we were visiting our mother here." The blonde seemed confused, which looked familiar, but Summer was too tired to think about it.

"Yeah, we...visited mom. She's...not in great shape." "I thought you said your mom was doing better" The woman with black hair glared at the blonde one, who looked at least sheepish. "...I meant she was being cognizant. Not that she was getting better." the black haired one said quietly. "Oh, I'm sorry." Summer said contritely.

"Hey, um...since Mom probably wouldn't understand it, do you mind if we call you mom?" Summer didn't think that the black haired one could glare any harder, but she would swear her eyes shone silver for a second at her sister. She decided to humor the blonde for the sake of civility. "It's okay." The black haired one looked to be on the verge of crying. "Thanks...Mom." Both reached around to hug her, and it felt nice.

She held them both, and whispered to them "You've both grown so much over the years. I remember when I first saw you two and it was magical" The two squeezed a little tighter. Summer could see their weapons on their sides, a gun of some kind on the back of one and Summer could feel the other's metal arm. "You're both become incredible huntresses." Summer started to play with the blonde's hair, marvelling at how ridiculously long it was, and as she looked more closely at the black haired one, she realized that her hair was actually a dull red, dyed from the roots nearly all of the way the tips black. She could feel the two squeezing even harder on her back. "I'm proud of you both." She could hear the red haired one breathing in hard, and the blonde was clearly holding back from hugging harder.

Finally, they pulled away, both with tears in their eyes, and smiles on their faces.

"Now what were your names again?"

The blonde one burst into tears, running out of the room. The red haired one was on the verge, but she stayed long enough to say "Ruby, my name is Ruby. Hers is Yang." "Oh, thank you for stopping by."

"You're welcome...Mom." In a flurry of petals she was gone. But Summer could faintly see the trail of tears in her wake too. She wondered what was wrong, it was probably something to do with their mother but she hoped that whatever it was, it was fixable. They seemed like good women and their mother must have done something right, right?

That was Summer's last thought as she faded out of existence. Dying for real this time.


End file.
